“It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them.”–Emperor Palpatine, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Shouts and screams echo around you—the din of pitched battle. The air smells acrid from blaster fire as lasers hiss past your squad. A scout trooper roars past on a 74-Z speeder bike, weaving between trees and firing at someone you can’t quite see through the underbrush. You raise your blaster and fire in the same direction, hoping to avoid any shrapnel. Ahead, you see Darth Vader, towering over a group of fallen Rebels strewn across the forest floor. He flicks his lightsaber forward, and your platoon charges…

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Star Wars™: Legion, a new miniatures game of infantry battles that invites you to join iconic heroes and villains, lead your troopers into battle, and battle for the fate of the Star Warsgalaxy. With Star Wars: Legion, you can build and paint a unique army of miniatures. You can command your troops in battle and devise masterful tactics. And you can conquer your opponent’s army to bring victory to the light side or the dark side!

With thirty-three unpainted and easily assembled miniatures, and all the cards, movement tools, tokens, and terrain that you need for battle, the Star Wars: Legion Core Set is the perfect way to bring Star Wars battles to your tabletop.

If you’re here with us at Gen Con 50 in Indianapolis, head to our booth to get your first taste of Star Wars: Legion, but in the meantime, read on!

Charge into Battle

Star Wars: Legion casts you as a commander in the heat of battle, pitting the Empire’s finest against the ragtag forces of the Rebellion. You’ve received your objectives from high command, and the tactics that you execute in battle will determine if you can restore freedom to the galaxy or crush the resistance of the Rebel Alliance forever.

The heroes, villains, vehicles, and squads of troopers that you command are the heart of your army, and each round, you’ll command your units to press your advantage. Whether your unit is a squad of Stormtroopers or a salvaged Rebel AT-RT, each unit can take two actions to march across the battlefield, launch a devastating attack, take careful aim, dodge away from enemy fire, take a moment to recover, or hold their action until the optimal moment.

Movement in Star Wars: Legion is fast and organic as you maneuver your troops around the battlefield using jointed movement tools. Unlike many miniatures games, you don’t need to measure movement for every miniature in a unit! Once you’ve measured movement for your unit leader, you simply pick up the other soldiers in the unit and place them in cohesion with the unit leader.

Not only does this make movement fast and intuitive, it lets you strategically position your troops to take cover from blaster fire or control strategic terrain. Sending your Stormtroopers charging into just the right place to line up a devastating crossfire or catching your opponent’s forces between Luke Skywalker and a powerful AT-RT walker are some of the game-changing moves that can turn the tide and decide the fate of the galaxy in any game of Star Wars: Legion!

Movement and positioning are important, but you’ll need to send your troops forward if you’re going to defeat the enemy army. Combat in Star Wars: Legion is driven by the weapons each soldier wields—whether you’re firing blasters, throwing grenades, igniting vehicle-mounted flamethrowers, or drawing a lightsaber. For every attack, you’ll choose the weapons you want your soldiers to use, adapting to the evolving battlefield by choosing between a blaster and a rocket launcher, for example.

Each of the four Rebel Troopers chooses to use an A-280 Rifle, contributing a total of four black dice to the attack. The 74-Z Speeder Bikes unit will roll a defense die for each hit.

Just as important as choosing which weapon you use is choosing when to attack. If your opponent is taking cover behind terrain or prepared to dodge your attack, then it may be better to reposition your unit and maneuver your forces to create a better opportunity for your onslaught. The choices you make will govern the fates of your soldiers—but if you lead them wisely, then victory is assured! For more information about movement and combat, visit the Star Wars: Legion minisite and keep an eye out for future in-depth previews.

Command Your Troops

To win the battle, your troops will need to move and attack, but first they need orders—and that can be challenging at times during the heat of battle. Luckily, you have your army’s commander to ensure you can activate your units at the critical times.

While every unit you control on the battlefield will activate each round, the command system for Star Wars: Legion presents you with the opportunity to outmaneuver and outthink your opponent. Adapting to the changing tides of battle is one of the things that separates truly great commanders from lesser officers.

Build Your Army

Like other miniatures games, Star Wars: Legion also gives you the chance to build a unique army. Before the game begins, you’ll select the exact heroes, villains, troopers, and vehicles that you want to use. Within the Core Set alone, you already have choices to make with thirty-three miniatures, including Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Rebel Troopers, Stormtroopers, an AT-RT, and 74-Z Speeder Bikes.

While the Core Set gives you everything that you need for your first battles, you’ll find even more options as you expand from there. You may choose to build an army that uses swarm tactics with large numbers of troopers, or you may focus on the improved armor and firepower of vehicles, but whether you’re planning a small-scale skirmish or a pitched battle between dozens of units, the game allows you to build an army that fits the way you want to play.

The choices and customization don’t stop there, either. Every unit in Star Wars: Legion has the option for you to tweak it to fit your preferences and playstyle with upgrade cards. You may upgrade Darth Vader with the ability to throw his lightsaber, load a rotary blaster onto your AT-RT, bring heavy weapons specialists into your trooper unit, or equip your 74-Z Speeder Bikes with long-range comlinks. No matter how you upgrade your units, every upgrade card is another step to making your army different.

And of course, perhaps the most entertaining step of army building for many players is to paint and customize your miniatures! All Star Wars: Legion minis come unpainted, so after you assemble your army, you’ll be able to paint them to create a truly unique army and bring the Star Wars galaxy to your tabletop. Although you don’t need to paint your army, many players find it more enjoyable to play with a painted army—and we’ll have plenty of articles and video tutorials to support your painting in coming months, including help for beginners. Even if you’ve never played a miniatures game or painted an army before, the Star Wars: Legion Core Set is the perfect entrypoint to the hobby.

Build. Command. Conquer.

Your troopers’ boots are on the ground, and battle is about to be joined. If you’re with us at Gen Con 50 in Indianapolis, head over to the Fantasy Flight Games booth to be among the first to experience the infantry battles of Star Wars: Legion!

Take command of your forces and give the order to charge—the Star Wars: Legion Core Set (SWL01) is scheduled to be released in early 2018.

Epic warfare is an inescapable part of the Star Wars™ universe, and you can lead your troops to victory with Star Wars: Legion™, a two-player miniatures game of thrilling infantry battles in the Star Wars universe! As a miniatures game, Star Wars: Legion invites you to enter the ground battles of the Galactic Civil War as the commander of a unique army filled with troopers, powerful vehicles, and iconic characters. While innovative mechanics for command and control simulate the fog of war and the chaos of battle, the game’s unpainted, easily assembled figures give you a canvas to create any Star Wars army you can imagine.

FFG SWL01 Star Wars: Legion – Core Set $89.95 is the only new info. The quote is the full description.

My take

Would be interesting to see what comes of this. I do enjoy the odd game of Imperial Assault (meaning I have miniatures), and Star Wars is .. well .. Star Wars.

On the other hand, FFG’s recent shot at Wargames – the Runewars Miniatures Game – seemed stillborn to me, both due to overtly fiddly rules and by their decision to not bring people’s existing collection of Descent Miniatures into the game.

There may be an announcement following „the leak“ (which looks reasonably authentic, though it could, of course, still be a prank).

It’s been a while since I played X-Wing and, frankly, I lost track of recent releases.

But with an opportunity to play a few games over the coming weeks, I bought the first shiny new ship that caught my attention – a Rebel TIE Fighter! – and will get a chance to fly it soon. Weiterlesen →

To Hit Hard, To Survive the End Game

There is a nice symmetry in the list, with two X-Wing aces at 38 points and two Bandits, who generally serve to purpose of being a nuisance to my opponent.

Though the two X-Wing aces cost me the same amount of points, they fly very differently on the table.

Wedge Antilles is not nearly as survivable as Poe Dameron. He rarely survived the games.

He did deal massive amounts of damage and I was really, really positively surprised with the BB-8 + Push the Limit combination. I knew it was good. I didn’t know how good. It makes the X-Wing extremely maneouverable (for an X-Wing) and allowed Wedge Antilles to deliver his trademark killer-attacks right where he needed them to be. With or without Wedge Antilles, this is a combination I will certainly use again (with a T-70 X-WingRed Squadron Veteran or even Poe Dameron himself).

Poe Dameron in this build was the exact opposite to Wedge Antilles, as far as X-Wing-builds go. With Autothrusters, re-rolls from Lone Wolf and the ability to regenerate shields, he was meant (and usually was) built for the end game, the last ship on the table, where he excelled at wars of attrition.

Again, I am happy to report that Poe Dameron served excellently in this faction.

In one game, circling with an equally mobile and nearly as robust IG-88 Aggressor, I was able to wear my opponent down through many, many turns of shooting and shield-regenerating.

It wasn’t the finest game of X-Wing ever played, but it shows Poe Dameron’s potential for the long game, assuming he does not die early in the game to a concentrated barrage.

Final Thoughts?

Did I win the tournament?

No. I was beaten soundly by a Scum-&-Villainy-Swarm full off M3-A Interceptors and only just managed to eke out a small, technical victory by points against a Squadron of Y-Wings with Twin Laser Turrets and Corran Horn in an E-Wing.

That said, both X-Wing were tons of fun to fly. They were also effective in their own right and complemented each other well.

A fun list, and I will definitely fly something along those lines again!

This is the second part of my StarViper unboxing. In the first part of this article, I talked about ship as a model, its basic statline and maneuver dial.

This second part examines the named pilots and upgrade cards – everything to really tool up and customise your StarViper for a space battle!

The Unique StarViper Pilots

The StarViper Expansion Pack for the X-Wing Miniatures game comes with four pilot cards: The generic Black Sun Enforcers (pilot skill 1) and Black Sun Vigo (pilot skill 3), as well as the Prince Xizor, leader of the Black Sun himself, and his bodyguard and human replica droid Guri.

Prince Xizoris the top pilot for the StarViper, though his pilot skill of 7 is slightly below most top pilots of other ships. His ability to palm off damage to nearby ships – and inverse Draw Their Fire – is very thematic, both for the crime prince himself and for the Scum and Villainy faction as a whole.

That said, Rebels are probably still better suited for squadrons using Draw-Their-Fire-like abilities, as they have more ships that can regenerate shields.

Guri has the more interesting ability, I believe. Her ability to gain a free focus up and close to the enemy synergises very well with the StarViper’s role as a close-combat dogfighter and frees up an action to use for barrel roll and/or boost (with abilities like Push the Limit)

Both Guri and Prince Xizor can take an Elite Talent.

Scum & Villainy Upgrade Cards

Let’s start with the cards unique to the Scum and Villainy faction.

Virago is the StarViper’s unique title. It can only by used by Prince Xizor and Guri and adds the ability to equip both Illicit and System Upgrades to the ship, opening up a lot of customisability.

Bodyguard, featuring art work for Guri, is a card obviously designed for Guri. It works well with Guri’s ability to generate a free focus. It makes Guri a nice companion, especially for large ships (more so than Prince Xizor), allowing her to boost the other ship’s agility. I am tempted to try with with, say, a Firespray 31.

Inertial Dampeners is a one-use-only card, though it can be a nice surprise to stall out a pursuing ship. It is also a cheap upgrade.

Generic New Upgrade Cards

Upgrade cards from this expansion that anyone can use.

Autothrusters – the one Modification that brought arc dodgers back into the game against turrets. These days, it is impossible to go to an X-Wing tournament and not see Autothrusters. Arguably. this upgrade – and you get two in the expansion – sold FFG more StarViper expansion packs as the ship itself.

Accuracy Corrector – if Autothrusters are amazing, Accuracy Corrector is a System Upgrade without a place, at the moment. For one, the few ships currently able to take System Upgrades all have plenty of attack dice, making two guaranteed hits less exciting. For another, System Upgrades, rare as they are, include some amazing cards. The Accuracy Corrector is also rather expensive.

Hull Upgrade – A card seen before and, in this expansion, arguably meant to go on Prince Xizor’s ship, potentially making him a bit more tanky.

The Final Two Upgrades

Yes. Two more. There really is a lot of fun things in the StarViper expansion pack!

Calculation – a Elite Talent featuring Prince Xizor himself (don’t expect to get this from other expansions anytime soon. Yet another way to use of Focus Tokens (the Episode VII starter set added a few of those too). Situationally powerful and cheap, but I would not use it over abilities like Predator.

Ion Torpedos – a secondary weapon I have not used. This torpedo has great potential to wreak havoc among swarms of small ships. Imagine taking out somebody like Howlrunner with the Ion Torpedo and (!) ionizing her swarm. Still, 5 points is a lot to gamble on a one-shot weapon.

It should be noted that the expansion also comes with 7 (yes, seven!) Ion Tokens, in case the Ion Torpedo(the only ion weapon in the expansion) works as intended!

Final Thoughts

Autothruster modification cards put the StarViper expansion pack on the shopping list of every X-Wing tournament player. Yet even ignoring the Autothrusters, I feel this expansion offers a lot for budding Scum-and-Villainy-players.

It offers a very nimble, elite ship with a cool, unique look

It is bulging with unique upgrade cards and abilities. Though most (except Autothrusters) may not be the top-shelf tournament stuff, they offer some interesting and fluffy builds. With the possible exception of the Accuracy Corrector, no upgrade here seems bad.

The StarViper, signature ship of the Black Sun elite in the Star Wars universe, is a very unique and well-designed ship, both in its looks and how it plays on the table, even if the expansion is perhaps often bought mainly for its upgrade cards.

There is a lot to talk about, so I will split this unboxing of the StarViper Expansion Pack for the X-Wing Miniatures game. into two parts.

The StarViper miniature

Let’s talk about the StarViper ship as a miniature.

The StarViper is an elite ship, and its design and size give it a suitable presence on the table. It is one of the larger ships on a small base in the X-Wing miniatures game, though its vertical design make the model far less wobbly or prone to snagging other miniatures than, for example, the likewise large (for a small base) K-Wing.

The StarViper also has that somewhat intangible „Star-Wars-look“, that (in my humble opinion), not all Scum and Villainy ships managed to capture.

It certainly is, to me, a big visual draw to building a Scum and Villainy squadron.

StarViper: An Elite Dogfighter

The StarViper is a high-end dog fighter. It comes with 3 attack, 3 agility, 4 hull and a shield (!), as well as the ability to both boost, barrel roll and target-lock, putting it on par with a TIE-Interceptor with hull upgrade, shield upgrade and targeting computer (minus the ability to evade).

At 25 points for the most basic pilot – the Black Sun Enforcers – it is not a cheap ship. Its excellent mobility and reasonable resilience make the StarViper an excellent platform for an elite Scum-and-Villainy-arc-dodger.

Moreover, any StarViper can equip a torpedo, giving the ship the option for some extra punch. Curiously though, the StarViper cannot, by default, use the Scum and Villainy faction’s trademark illicit upgrades.

The StarViper’s Manoeuver Dial

If the StarViper has an excellent statline for a nimble dog-fighter, it’s manoeuver dial is just as great.

It can perform all speed 1 and speed 2 maneuvers, making it extremely mobile in close quarters. Many of them are also green maneuvers, allowing the StarViper to shed stress relatively easily.

The StarViper can also cover distance with a straight 4.

Most notably, however, it can use the Segnor’s Loop maneuver, a new manoeuver first introduced to the X-Wing Miniatures game with the Scum and Villainy faction (though the Episode VII TIE/Fo-Fighters since learned to copy this trick).

Part 1 Summary

In summary, I have to say I really like the StarViper. It is a unique-looking ship, which – especially in absence of a large ship like the Slave I – makes a splendid centre-piece for a Scum-and-Villainy-squadron.

The StarViper clearly feels right at home in the thick of things, dodging and weaving around enemy ships at close range.

In part 2 of this unboxing, I will therefore take a look at some of the upgrades and named pilots of this expansion, seeing if the best pilots in the StarViper can match the game’s more famous arc dodgers like Soontir Fel or Tycho Celchu.

I made the following Rebels X-Wing list and took it for a game at the club. This is clearly not a tournament list or anything of this sort. The idea here was to fill the list with as many of the new Episode VII Rebels toys from the starter as possible.

I played against an Imperial squadron of elite pilots in nimble, arc-dodging ships, including Echo (TIE-Phantom) and Carnor Jax (TIE-Interceptor).

This three-part series will detail my thoughts on

Poe Dameron and the T-70 X-Wing

Tycho Celchu with Wired

The Rookie Pilot with BB-8

Poe Dameron and the new T-70 X-Wing

The Logic behind this Build

Poe Dameron presented a bit of a conflict for me.

One one hand, I wanted to test/get the most out of his pilot ability. An obvious, often recommended synergy is his ability with R5-P9, who allows Poe Dameron to use his „saved“ focus token to regain shield at the end of each turn.

One the other hand, I also wanted to try the new Tallan Roll of the T-70 X-Wing, a red maneuver that prevents the focus action (and doesn’t sit well with abilities like Push the Limit). I opted for Adrenaline Rush to have it both ways in one turn.

My Thoughts after Playing

Tallan Roll: The Tallan Roll is by far my favourite novelty of the T-70 X-Wing. It allowed Poe Dameron to keep slippery Imperials like Echo in his sights, allowed him to dodge Carnor Jax and his deadly short-range fire and kept my opponent on edge.

Part of the maneuvers appeal may be its novelty, which may wear off as people get used to it, start predicting it, but so far I am loving it.

Doing the Tallan Roll just once with an Adrenaline Rush was definitely not enough and I played the maneuver a few more times, stress or no stress, for good results.

R5-P9: I was less impressed with R5-P9, despite the obvious synergies. I believe I only used the droid to repair a shield once in the game.

Partly, this was due to the repeated Tallan Rolls, which denied Poe Dameron a focus token in the first place, which in turn was possibly a result of flying against a squadron of nimble arc-dodgers.

I can see how Poe Dameron’s pilot ability and R5-P9 could work a lot better, especially against less agile ships, especially those with a turret.

It just has not worked for me like this in practice.

Final Thoughts

The T-70 X-Wing, Poe Dameron in particular, represent a bit of a conundrum:

Should I equip Poe Dameron for resilience, using focus, in ability and a suitable astromech to keep him healthy?

Or should I play him for maneuverability, getting the most out of Tallan Rolls and boost actions to dance around asteroids or enemy ships?

Flying an X-Wing like a far more nimbler ship is certainly fun, and the pay-off for a well-placed maneuver with an X-Wing is nothing to sneeze at, even if Poe Dameron may not by the wisest T-70 X-Wing pilot to choose for this approach.

The former, more tanky approach might prove to be the more reliable one, especially if ships like the VT-49 Decimator or YT-2400 are on the table.

It is a tricky choice, but arguably also a sign of excellent game-design behind this ship.

I chose Darth Vader as my next project. As I have basically no experience painting black details, I once more turned to Sorastro’s Painting Tutorials for inspiration.

Step 1 – Black Undercoat

No more than giving the miniature a good coat with Citadel’s black primer.

Step 2 – Highlighting Black

Highlighting Darth Vader is where the fun starts. I used a mix of Army Painter Matt Black and Citadel Fenrisian Grey, adding more and more Fenrisian Grey as I went to brighten the highlights (or some more black, when I found the contrast too stark).

Step 3 – Wash

Once I was happy with the highlights, I let the miniature dry, before giving it a wash with Citadel Nuln Oil.

Step 4 – Adding Details

Finally, once the wash had dried, I went back to some of the highlights, this time adding a bit of silver metallic paint into the aforementioned mix. I also used the metallic paint for the belt, the light-saber handle and the chain holding the cloak.

I painted the red (Mephiston Red) and blue (Lotheran Blue) buttons on the chest panel.

Last but not least, I gave the blade of the light saber a coat of Ceramite White in preparation of painting it in a vibrant red.

After the initial salt weathering on the AT-ST, I went to work on the details.

The weapons were painted with Army Painter black, followed by a think „wet-brush“ of chain mail metal and, after drying, a wash of Nuln Oil.

The entire miniature got a good wash of Nuln Oil. After the wash had dried, I added a few lines and highlights with GW’s Administratum Grey.

I also painted the cockpit windows with layers of Warpstone Glow, Moot Green and Gauss Blaster Green, along with a little bit of black and a white highlight dot.

Close-up of the AT-ST cockpit

Magnetising the Hatch & Commander

Another thing I wanted to add to the AT-ST was a magnet to the hatch, so I could swap it out for an old Games Workshop Tank Commander, who would serve as arch-villain General Weiss in my Imperial Assault campaign.

Magnetised bits for the Imperial Assault AT-ST

For this, I simply filed down the peg of the hatch-bit, so I could use a 2mm magnet and still have the hatch close.

I added a similar magnet to a Tank Commander and glued a counter-part magnet into the hole on top of the AT-ST, normally used to plug in the hatch.

„Surrender, Rebel Scum!“

There is obviously still some clean-up to do, not to mention the base. However, I am very happy how my AT-ST is turning out so far …